Sisimpur Makes Space for A Child’s Voice

The first time Sesame Workshop producer Nadine Zylstra traveled to Bangladesh to work on Sisimpur, the Bangladeshi version of Sesame Street, she arrived in a small village and quickly realized that it was anything but ordinary for these villagers to see a white woman in their midst. A little six-year-old boy took one look at her and burst out laughing.

“He just couldn’t get over how hilarious he thought I looked,” Zylstra recalls. “He kept on slapping his knee and laughing.”

Ikri Mikri, Halum, Shiku, Tuktuki (Sisimpur)

The six-year-old’s laughter became contagious, and the two of them started laughing together. When it came time to watch a performance that the villagers were putting on in Zylstra’s honor, the little boy ended up sitting right next to her throughout the show.

It’s a significant story because it gets at the heart of why it’s difficult to capture meaningful stories about rural life for Sisimpur. Children in rural areas, in Zylstra’s experience, get very excited and agitated at the sight of a camera and crew, and it prevents their stories from unfolding naturally.

“Getting to the place where you can make space for a rural voice sounds a lot easier than it is. These places haven’t had the eye of the world on them.”

This is a main reason why Sesame Workshop and Bangladeshi co-producer Asiatic launched a project in 2004 encouraging rural Bangladeshi teenagers to document their stories on film. The resulting rural live action films are shown on Sisimpur to children across Bangladesh, who then see a part of their own lives on the screen.

Rural teenagers put their own stories on film

When the rural live action film project started, a group of 14- to 16-year-olds traveled from their villages to Dhaka to meet with a Sesame Workshop team for ten days and learn how to shoot and edit mini-documentaries. The team showed the teen filmmakers how to use the cameras and edit their footage, but all the imaginative and storytelling aspects were left completely up to them.

Bangladeshi teens learn to use cameras.

Zylstra says the kids’ collective talent was a pleasant surprise given that they were beginners.

“These kids were telling these incredible stories. I was perplexed. How is it that they have such a complex understanding of narrative and that they can really string a story together?”

The films focus on such varied topics as friendships with pigeons and building makeshift boats. In one film, a girl called Fahim helps her mother cook fish for supper. In another, Asha tells the story of a dance performance at her school.

“Many of our friends have come to see us dance, “ narrates Asha in her film. “I dance to the rhythm of the dhol [drum-like instrument] … they all clapped when we finished dancing. I’m feeling very happy, and our elders presented us with flowers.”

These films have ended up changing some teens’ lives. One girl’s family bought a rickshaw with the money she earned for her film; the rickshaw now provides a means to feed the whole family. A teenager named Chat, who came from a tiny village and was part of the first group of filmmakers in training, now works for the program and teaches younger people how to create the films that he once learned to make.

Zylstra says she’s often surprised with these teens’ ability to affect cultural norms. One 14-year-old boy created a film about him and his friends cooking and serving a meal to one another – something that an education adviser had said would be unbelievable to Bangladeshi audiences.

Of this film, Zylstra says, “Here we are, in this most unself-conscious, natural way, and we’ve pushed the gender line even the academics didn’t think we could push.”

“If you make space for a child’s voice, it’ll surprise you in ways you could never have contemplated,” says Zylstra.

Getting Sisimpur’s message to children across Bangladesh

The live action films are powerful in part because they show children across Bangladesh that their own stories are meaningful, interesting, and worth being put on television.

Sisimpur rickshaw van

“There’s something very exciting about telling them that these stories are important,” she explains.

As much of the Bangladeshi population has no access to a television and unreliable access to electricity, significant coordination efforts are needed in order to deliver Sisimpur to the country’s children. Sesame Workshop has teamed up with Save the Children to organize weekly community viewings in Bangladesh’s more remote regions. Rickshaw vans holding a TV, DVD player, and generator now deliver Sisimpur episodes at these weekly gatherings.

The hour-long viewings are held under a large tree, or in a preschool building if the weather’s bad. Sixty to 90 children sit on mats waiting for the show’s opening song to begin, clapping and cheering when the opening song starts. As the children watch, the facilitators occasionally pause the show to ask them questions and make the viewings an interactive learning experience.

Shah Alam, Sesame Workshop’s outreach director for Bangladesh, describes the learning he sees at these events.

“The children repeat the letters, words, and numbers with the characters, and rhyme and sing with them,” he says.

The rickshaw van drivers, whom the children affectionately call “Sisimpur Mama” (Uncle) are extremely dedicated in their mission to deliver Sisimpur to their young audience. On one rainy day, when asked why one rickshaw driver was going out in such bad weather, he replied, “The children will be waiting for me.”

Zylstra says that it’s very powerful to have Bangladeshi teenagers’ stories incorporated into Sisimpur’s episodes, as it allows children to see their own villages and friends on the screen and see a little bit of themselves in the stories.

“When the rickshaw van pulls up to show them the films that their own guys have made, the circle of learning is complete.”

Funding Partners
Unilever Bangladesh Ltd
United States Agency for International Development (USAID)

Production Partners
Nayantara Communications

Broadcasters
Bangladesh TV (BTV)